I had the opportunity this afternoon to join a conference call with Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman. I was thrilled to hear them answer my question, “What is going on with Peter being dark, killing shapeshifters, lying to Olivia? Is Olivia going to find out? How is she going to handle that type of betrayal?” I was assured by the writers that yes he would come clean to Olivia soon enough, there's a reason. Peter has reason to be more specifically concerned by what they're (the shapeshifters) are doing than anybody else as there's drawings of him standing inside the machine.

Naturally Peter's got questions and for years has only relied on himself. "He only had himself to trust but then he’s thrust himself into the situation where he has no knowledge and he’s basically reacting. So he’s been reacting since he came on the scene...he let go a certain amount of control in his life to be a part of this family and then realizes he’s in the nucleus of this entire thing that’s happened--doesn't have any answers. And this season was always going to be a season about self accutulization for a lot of the characters. This is the beginnings of those steps." The writers further go on to tell us that, "The truth is every one of us is human beings even in a committed relationship, has moments and thoughts and actions that whether or not are their only private matters and whether or not they share them with their loved ones and how and when and why, tells as much as anything about people and their relationship and we’re going to explore that as well between these two characters."

Another questioned asked during the conference call was in regards to both Peter and Olivia seeming to unravel—Peter moreso. It was asked, if they were going to get worse before they got better. We were told that they will get worse and better, the value won’t be good or bad but more complicated. “Since Olivia returned and their relationship has shattered, they’re trying to pick up the pieces—they are getting closer but their problems they’re dealing with are going to continue to complicate.” There will be other wrinkles during the next ten episodes however. “Largely this season has been a march to war and it will continue to be so, driven equally by the relationship by Peter and the two Olivia’s. We’re going to complicate it. As we drive to the end of the season, it will be as much setting up next season.” In fact it’s something they say, “we hope you don’t see coming.”

When asked about the move to Fridays, they told us that the network had informed them that a 1.2 to 1.4 would make the network happy. All along the fans had been asking for the network to move Fringe to another night, away from Thursdays. However when the network chose to move the show to Fridays (because of American Idol—a business decision), “the fans freaked out.”

The writers were asked if there was a pattern in flipping back and forth between worlds for episodes and also asked if there were any unexpected challenges of visiting that world as far as creatively storytelling. The network and the studio were initially concerned that the core audience wanted to stay with the core characters. Originally when Olivia was trapped on the other side, there was some hesitancy, in bringing her back right away – from the writer’s point of view. They wanted to set up the other side. The network however was incredibly nervous about not being able to see John Noble’s character Walter in those episodes. The writers had planned to bring Olivia back somewhere between 8-10 episodes and had decided to agree to the earlier aspect of episode eight for the network. In regards to a pattern between both worlds, “the story dictates where we’re going.”

A teaser for Friday’s episode reveals that there is information at the end of the episode and based on that information there will be consequences for Bolivia and Walternate. Which will escalate “the storytelling as the two universes are in disharmony—certainly for this season and next will by design affect the other side. The information and the reality will get to our side relatively soon and will absolutely affect what is going on over here. The expectations that one would have—it will not unfold in a way that is traditional. People should be prepared for that, could be really interesting.”

Another teaser and potentially small spoiler, “there will be two parasites in Friday’s episode however only one is a bug.”

When asked if we should be trusting Sam, immediately we were reminded of the anagram, “Don’t trust Sam Weiss.” The writers further told us that, “he still has many many many layers to reveal and his motivations will become clearer and you’ll get a better understanding…you’re going to find out about him, hopefully it’ll be something you don’t see coming.”

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Comments:

Does everyone reading this realize that our OWN fringetelevision.com contributor, samspade, got to ask her question live to executive producers Jeff Pinkner and JH Wyman yesterday on this conference call? *high fives* WAY TO GO! :)

What a disappointment. Out of about 40 questions posed by us fans, only 1 was really addressed - the one about Sam Weiss. No one said it was going to be a call in either. I thought it was going to be a 1 on 1 like the first round of questions so a lot more would be answered. Color me gray with sadness. Matthew from the Fringe